


Raise It Up

by whatamidoingeven



Category: RWBY
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-09
Updated: 2014-01-09
Packaged: 2018-01-08 01:49:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1126956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatamidoingeven/pseuds/whatamidoingeven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are points in time where Pyrrha Nikos' life changes, but through it all, she becomes exactly who she needs to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Raise It Up

 

When Pyrrha Nikos receives her first set of armor, she can’t contain her smile. This is the day that she solidifies her dream- she leaves for training school the next day, to officially begin her quest to try and become a huntress. Her parents wear looks of pride- they know she has chosen the right path. They knew she was destined for the huntress life from the moment she first wielded a weapon. And Pyrrha can’t help but notice how, on this morning, the light that reflects from her new armor, her new dream, shines gold.

—-

It’s on the eve of her first Misteal Regional Tournament that Pyrrha questions her choice to become a huntress. It is one of only two times in her life that she will do so. This is fueled by insecurity, doubt, and fear. It’s the fear that will stick with her. She’s afraid of what the morning will bring- afraid that standing under such bright shining lights will leave her frozen. She’s afraid of embarrassment.

But mostly, she’s afraid of failure.

She’s afraid that losing tomorrow will seal her fate- that it will lock her into a destiny where she cannot possibly win. She’s afraid that failure will stain her. She considers leaving without a trace.

But before she can formulate a plan to do so, Pyrrha remembers her training. Specifically, she remembers being beat- repeatedly, by opponents far better than herself. She remembers crashing to the floor, the victim of too slow reaction times and too little battle experience. She remembers these things, but she also recalls getting back up again. She remembers not backing down.  

On this night, she makes a pledge to herself that she will achieve victory, in everything she does. She determines that she is ready to accept the cost of that victory, no matter how painful.

——

There is one other instance of doubt seeping in Pyrrha Nikos’ life, and it is brief and sudden.

Nearly a huntress now, a year away from that dream becoming a reality, and she finds herself deep within the wilderness. Alone.

The other members of team JNPR are gone, and she has only a base instinct of where they could be. They had been fighting Grimm, too many of them, and couldn’t cover all of their angles. It was something they had been taught in their years at Beacon, but it hadn’t been honed, not yet. They were all still too young to have been thrown into this gauntlet. But they had to be prepared for it. Huntresses and Hunters were charged with protecting the world- that is not a responsibility formed in comfort.

Pyrrha isn’t contemplating this now- she’s running, nowhere, anywhere, looking for her team members. She can feel their Auras, but the forest is misleading. It’s disorienting. But still she runs. She can’t think, the forest seems to be getting deeper and deeper and the darkness is pervasive. She wants to find them. She wants to help. She wants.

Finally, after trekking around and between what seem like never-ending pines, she comes across a clearing. A valley. She recognizes it instantly as where she had been flung away from the battle by a Grimm. And she doesn’t see any of them- not Ren, not Nora. Not Jaune.

She collapses there- on hands and knees, exhausted physically and emotionally. Their auras are faded.

They’re gone.

Or so she’s convinced. It’s in the moments of silence that surround her faux- revelation that she hears the bushes behind her stir, and she’s greeted by the thumping footsteps of Nora and the light pitter patter of Ren’s feet hitting the forest floor.

She can’t believe it. The loss had seemed so real, so tangible, even if it was only for a moment. She loses track of things like grace while she scrambles to her feet to greet her team members.

Her excitement and relief fades when she makes eye contact with the pair. The only thing Pyrrha hears is the wind whistling through the leaves. Even Nora is quiet. She doesn’t need to say anything. No one does.

But, Pyrrha thinks, but. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. He can’t be.

He is.

This is the second time that Pyrrha questions her choice to become a huntress. Because in the nothingness that follows the moment, in the silence that suddenly compresses her chest, she doesn’t think she can take any more weight. She doesn’t want to contemplate the worth of it all, she doesn’t want to think about the price she’s paid to be here. She doesn’t want to think about what she exchanged so long ago in the face of fear.

She doesn’t want to think at all.

—-

When she leaves Beacon a year later, Pyrrha is steel. She is officially a huntress, and the decision is too permanent to ever question again.

She can’t forget the price she paid to get to this point and she doesn’t. She fights valiantly in her time as a huntress. She’s Pyrrha Nikos, a lion of a woman, renowned throughout Vale and the other three kingdoms for her skill, her valor, her courage.

Renowned, as she has always been, for her grand victories in the field.

Pyrrha finds little reward in recognition. She’s the only one who knows the price of such accomplishments.

—

The next time she sees Jaune, it is spring. She has been a huntress for a long time- Milo had gone dull long ago, and her name no longer rings throughout the kingdoms but for the whisper of the legend she has left with it.

And she’s tired, so tired.

It’s towards the end of her journey that she decides to venture to that valley. The forest has changed- it seems to have thinned, air seeps in between the ancient pines that tower over her. The journey is brief- she knows when she has arrived. Despite there being no landmark to tell her, Pyrrha finds the exact spot she belongs.

She takes off her armor, now dulled and warn, and sets it aside.

And she feels him. She thinks it’s an illusion, at first- her mind had a habit of playing tricks on her these days. But a glance at her palm dispels that notion quickly. She glows, brighter than she has in years. It brings a smile to her face. She remembers the last time she felt this Aura, the last time it had intermixed so perfectly with her own.

When she looks up, she can’t help but notice the soft glint of sunset rays that shine from her warn armor.

And she realizes, in a perfect mix of Aura and sunlight, that she shines gold.

\----

_This is a gift, it comes with a price_   
_Who is the lamb and who is the knife?_   
_Midas is king and he holds me so tight_   
_And turns me to gold in the sunlight_

**Author's Note:**

> The last bit of the fic there is a mention of something that I headcanon’d regarding auras, which is basically that when someone with aura unlocked dies, their aura transfers to the person who they loved the most or who loved them the most.


End file.
